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They say sport is now a business, and that Test Cricket is dying. Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber, two cricket fans who became journalists, want to know if “they” know what the hell they are talking about. Is cricket a business, a product, or the sport they grew up thinking it was?
Death of a Gentleman sees this odd couple – the Etonian and the Aussie – travel the cricketing world meeting heroes, villains, ogres and accountants as they ask a question on behalf of millions of fans around the world – Does Test cricket have a future in the Twenty20 age? It is a story of passion, politics, money and everything that stands to be lost when sport and business collide.
In Australia they befriend Eddie Cowan, the banker-turned-cricketer given an unexpected chance in his national side, as he prepares to make his Test debut alongside his childhood hero Ricky Ponting. Facing them are India, cricket’s modern superpower and the home of the ageing Sachin Tendulkar – the closest thing to a sporting God there is.
Cowan’s tale begins on Australian cricket’s biggest day – Boxing Day – in front of a live crowd of over 70,000 and a TV audience of over a hundred million. Can his unashamed love for Test cricket outweigh the cynicism of an increasingly corporate sporting world, and provide a compelling case for its survival?
As the series goes on and India fall – causing millions of their fans to switch off in the process – Collins and Kimber must face up to the fact that their quest may not have a happy ending. How could Test cricket survive without the interest of the country that now controls its finances? And who really has the game’s best interest at heart? They search every corner of cricket – administrators, TV companies, agents, players, journalists and fans – for the answer, visiting Australia, India, England and Sri Lanka to witness the circus of oddballs, incompetents, bureaucrats and conmen who run the game and canvas some of it’s the biggest names like Dravid, Atherton, Lorgat and Srinivasan along the way.
Death of a Gentleman isn’t a cricket documentary – it’s a science fiction film about a world run by Indians. This is a film about global politics that just happens to look like it’s a film about sport.
What’s happening to cricket reflects what’s happening to the world: the ‘monetization’ of anything that moves, shortening attention spans, the rise of the superpower and the celebrity, ineffectual international bodies (global warming anyone?), media control and the loss of heroes, history and identity.
If cricket is your sport, you will already understand why that’s a problem. If it’s not, look closely at the things you care about – you might recognise something. Death of a Gentleman is about doing whatever you can to save the thing you love before it’s too late.
